In any case, Oval Office ambitions don’t seem anything new for Hillary Clinton, who once mulled running to replace her husband as Arkansas governor when he got bored with the job.

Betsey Wright, Bill Clinton’s Arkansas chief of staff, touched off a flap in 1994 when The New Yorker magazine reported she’d said: “There are a great many people talking very seriously about [Hillary] succeeding him” as president and called it “a very viable plan of action.”

Wright howled she’d been misquoted – but The New Yorker stood by its story, written more than a year before Monica Lewinsky was a gleam in Bill Clinton’s eye and Sexgate boosted Mrs. Clinton’s popularity.

The Hillary scenario now making the rounds says her White House ambitions are why Mrs. Clinton can’t wait for 2004 when she could run for Senate in her home state of Illinois where her Chicago Cub loyalties would be an asset, not a worry.

“The only way she can run for president in 2004 is to run for the Senate now,” says a Democratic activist. “Otherwise, if Al Gore loses in 2000, she’s just an ex-First Lady in 2004.”

After all, polls now show Gore trailing GOP front-runner George W. Bush by nearly 20 points. Sure, polls change, but it’s obviously a distinct possibility that Gore could be a loser, leaving the Democratic field wide open in 2004.

And, so the scenario goes, Mrs. Clinton can’t risk letting another Dem run in 2004 and win – because then the next opening wouldn’t be until 2112 when she’d be 65 and there’d be a lot more competition from rising star women in the Democratic party.

Sound nutty? Well, consider all the weird twists and turns that Sexgate has taken over the past year. Would this be any weirder?

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There’s another scenario making Democratic rounds: That Mrs. Clinton is floating her name for senator because she really wants to be Al Gore’s running mate next year.

Not exactly what Gore needs as he tries to cut himself away from Bill Clinton’s apron strings, perhaps. But could he say no if Mrs. Clinton and her allies – and his boss, her husband – pushed for it? What if the liberals who’ll dominate the 2000 convention try to draft her?

“Obviously we think she is a tremendous First Lady but it would be very presumptuous and premature for us to engage in such hypothetical speculation,” said Gore spokesman Chris Lehane.

One reason Mrs. Clinton’s name comes up: The Dems are short of qualified women for veep. What will they do if Bush is the GOP nominee and taps Elizabeth Dole as his running mate?

Or suppose Bush manages to persuade his dad’s old pal, Colin Powell, to be his running mate? Could Gore, if he’s the Dem nominee, tap another white male as his veep?

The list of Dem women who could be veep is minuscule. New Hampshire’s popular Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, arguably Mrs. Clinton, and then?

Forget the talk about Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). Her husband’s real-estate dealings kept Walter Mondale from tapping her in 1984, she has been a defender/apologist for China and she’s known as the exact opposite of a team player.

Indeed, the list of high-profile Dem women is so short that some talk about Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend for veep. As it happens, she’s a close Gore friend.